A school of fish the size of Manhattan Island, a crab with fur, a habitat at the bottom of the ocean that reaches 407 degrees Celsius, yet sustains an ecosystem – these discoveries represent just a small sliver of what can be found in the ocean, which is largely unexplored. For the first time, through the Census of Marine Life, researchers are assembling a comprehensive picture of what lives in the ocean. What they have found, however, goes far beyond the discovery of individual species to confirming real connections to human society. Seafood is a vital component of human diets around the world. Millions of jobs rely on marine life, including the transportation and marketing of seafood products, as well as the industries of commercial and recreational fishing and tourism. Advances in medicine, health and the pharmaceutical industry become possible with the discovery and analysis of new species. Each organism in the ocean plays a role in providing these services in the overall ocean ecosystem, the majority of which we are just beginning to understand. This symposium will explore the areas in which research, technology and discoveries from the marine biodiversity research can benefit society through informing the development of sustainable fisheries and marine protected areas, monitoring endangered species, understanding the impacts of climate change, and providing open access to data and biological ocean observing.